Storytelling Connections
Spring 2024
Final Reflection
due: May 3, 2024
Stories both describe our understanding of life and its social structures AND create our understanding of life and its social structures.
Think about your experiences when telling stories with the youth in detention.
Think about what you read in “The Body Keeps the Score,” “ Small Things Like These,” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?”
Part 1: Pre-writing
What was the story you had in your mind about incarcerated youth BEFORE you started going to visit and tell stories? Consider Davis’s claim on p.18 that it is practically impossible to avoid “prison films.” Did you have a movie that shaped your thinking?
Has the story in your mind about incarcerated youth and about prisons in general changed? (write a brief reflection)
Collect examples of assumptions and stories—your own and also cultural assumptions—that you can find in your own reflective posts, and in the texts we read this semester. Consider these possible exhibits for your essay portfolio.
Collect examples of new insights and changed behavior you see, in yourself and in the texts. Also consider these as exhibits for your essay portfolio.
Part 2: Portfolio of Exhibits: Put the written reflections, blog posts, stories from the class-created booklet “Campfire Stories” and other examples into a Portfolio of Exhibits. Each piece of writing should have its own page, and you should identify the writing by author, date and, if it is published anywhere on the web, where I could find it. (Example: Prep Note by Kaylee, April 19 https://blog.richmond.edu/storytelling2023/2024/04/19/prep-note-4-19civil-w/)
For quotations from the published books you read, create a section just for quotes and their page numbers. (Remember the Compost Heap from fall semester? You are basically making one page of your Portfolio of Exhibits a “Compost Page“)
Part 3: Write an essay
Design a thesis statement that tells how the story you tell yourself about incarceration has changed. You might focus on your own personal stories and connections, or on societal stories, or use a combination of both. Write a reflective essay that draws on examples to illustrate what specifically has changed for you, and in what ways.
The essay should be 5-6 pages, should analyze some quotes from your exhibits, using in-text citation format. The essay should prove or illuminate your thesis statement.
Part 4: Turn in for a grade
By noon on May 3, turn in your essay + exhibit portfolio for a grade.
FOR HELP WITH FORMAT, see this example